 How were Jig and Bucky attacked by 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. 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. Bucky Shannon sighed, and let his fist start traveling, a long, deceptive arc. Mistaken identity." 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...." 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. "Gertrude be blowed," growled Bucky. 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. 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. 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. Bucky Shannon regarded them possessively, wiping blood from his nose. "They're good guys, Jig.
 They had been released by someone on purpose
 They had been released by someone on purpose  Bucky had released them while inebriated  They had gone into the wrong enclosure.  They had escaped their tanks in search of food.