 Why did the crew mind that the cave-cat had kittens?
The Blue Behemoth By LEIGH BRACKETT Shannon's Imperial Circus was a jinxed space-carny leased for a mysterious tour of the inner worlds. It made a one-night pitch on a Venusian swamp-town—to find that death stalked it from the jungle in a tiny ball of flame. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories May 1943. Not hard enough to jar the ribs clean loose, just enough to spring them. With Shannon's Imperial Circus, the Greatest Show in Space, plastered so thick with attachments...." I've wet-nursed Shannon's Imperial Circus around the Triangle for eleven years, and I know. It's lousy, it's mangy, it's broken-down! In short, it stinks!" Nobody insults Buckhalter Shannon's Imperial Circus to Buckhalter Shannon's face unless he's tired and wants a long rest in a comfy fracture-frame. I had plenty of time to see his grey-green eyes get sleepy, and hear the quarter-Earth-blood Martian girl wailing about love over by the battered piano, and watch the slanting cat-eyes of the little dark people at the tables swing round toward us, pleased and kind of hungry. It was the most complete dead-pan I ever met, and you couldn't see into those innocent blue eyes any more than you could see through sheet metal. It has always been my desire to lighten the burden of life for those less fortunate...." He went on, quietly, "I have always held that entertainment, of the right sort, is the most valuable aid humanity can have in its search for the alleviation of toil and boredom...." "There are many towns along the Venusian frontiers where no entertainment of the— proper sort has been available. It was Gow, our zoo-man—a big, ugly son-of-a-gun from a Terran colony on Mercury. His hands, holding the curtains apart, had thick black hair on them and were not much larger than the hams of a Venusian swamp-rhino. "She's the star attraction of our show, Mr. Beamish. A real blue-swamp Venusian cansin . The only other one on the Triangle belongs to Savitt Brothers, and she's much smaller than Gertrude." The mystery surrounding the origin and species of the cansin is a fascinating subject. The extreme rarity of the animal...." I said tactfully, "We'd have to have at least a hundred U.C.'s."
 One had only four legs
 They didn't perform well while they were small.  They were too dangerous to keep onboard  They had no food for more mouths to feed  One had only four legs