 Who does Jig suspect wants them dead, and let loose the vapor snakes?
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. 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. 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. He closed his eyes and smiled pleasantly and said, very gently: "Would you be collecting for the feed bill, or the fuel?" This is Jig Bentley, my business manager." Mistaken identity." "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. He said, "Boss, Gertrude's actin' up again." If something...." I said, "That'll all be taken care of, Gow. A real blue-swamp Venusian cansin . The only other one on the Triangle belongs to Savitt Brothers, and she's much smaller than Gertrude." I said tactfully, "We'd have to have at least a hundred U.C.'s." It was pretty late when we got back to the broken-down spaceport where Shannon's Imperial Circus was crouching beneath its attachments. Late as it was, they were waiting for us. About twenty of them, sitting around and smoking and looking very ugly. Bucky Shannon walked out into the glare of the light at the entrance to the roped-off space around the main lock. It grates on a man's pride to have to sneak in and out of his own property through the sewage lock. The freaks and the green girl from Tethys who could roll herself like a hoop, and Zurt the muscle man from Jupiter, and all the other assorted geeks and kinkers and joeys that make up the usual corny carnie were doing nip-ups in the passageways and drooling over the thought of steer and toppings.
 Beamish, because he knows they cut him a bad deal.
 Beamish and the crew. The circus has not been doing well, and Beamish may be unhappy with the deal they cut.  The crew. They resent how little money they make.  Beamish, because he knows they cut him a bad deal.  Gow. He didn't call back the snakes as they attacked them, and is beside himself because of Gertrude.