 Why did Jig and Bucky rarely come in through the front door?
The Blue Behemoth By LEIGH BRACKETT Shannon's Imperial Circus was a jinxed space-carny leased for a mysterious tour of the inner worlds. 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. I had plenty of time to think how I only weigh one-thirty-seven to Shannon's one-seventy-five, and how I'm not as young as I used to be. The little guy looked at Shannon with pale blue eyes like a baby, and his voice was softer than Bucky's. Bucky Shannon sighed, and let his fist start traveling, a long, deceptive arc. 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. The only other one on the Triangle belongs to Savitt Brothers, and she's much smaller than Gertrude." The extreme rarity of the animal...." 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. Very solemnly, Bucky and I checked the bills, paid them, and pocketed the receipts. 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. Bes' li'l' guy inna worl'...."
 They wanted to avoid the debt collectors
 They wanted to avoid the screams of Gertrude  They wanted to avoid the debt collectors  They preferred the back entrance as to be closer to the action  They wanted to avoid the Vapor snakes