Azazel - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,2

good basketball player and it is unlikely that he will be signed up for enormous sums in salary."

"That's so unfair," she said, pouting. "Why isn't he a very good basketball player?"

"Because that is the way the universe works. Why do you not pin your young affections on someone who is a good basketball player? Or, for that matter, on some honest young Wall Street broker who happens to have access to inside information?"

"Actually, I've thought of that myself, Uncle George, but I like Leander all by himself. There are times when I think of him and say to myself, Is money really all that important?"

"Hush, little one," I said, shocked. Women these days are incredibly outspoken.

"But why can't I have the money too? Is that so much to ask?"

Actually, was it? After all, I had a demon all my own. It was a little demon, to be sure, but his heart was big. Surely he would want to help out the course of true love, in order to bring sweetness and light to two souls whose two hearts beat as one at the thought of mutual kisses and mutual funds.

Azazel did listen when I summoned him with the appropriate name of power. - No, I can't tell you what it is. Have you no sense of elementary ethics? - As I say, he did listen but with what I felt to be a lack of that true sympathy one would expect. I admit I had dragged him into our own continuum from what was an indulgence in something like a Turkish bath, for he was wrapped in a tiny towel and he was shivering. His voice seemed higher and squeakier than ever. (Actually, I don't think it was truly his voice. I think he communicated by telepathy of some sort, but the result was that I heard, or imagined I heard, a squeaky voice.)

"What is basket ball?" he said. "A ball shaped like a basket? Because if it is, what is a basket?"

I tried to explain but, for a demon, he can be very dense. He kept staring at me as though I were not explaining every bit of the game with luminous clarity.

He said, finally, "Is it possible for me to see a game of basketball?"

"Certainly," I said. "There will be a game tonight. I have a ticket which Leander gave me and you can come in my pocket."

"Fine," said Azazel. "Call me back when you are ready to leave for the game. Right now I must finish my zymjig," by which I suppose he meant his Turkish bath - and he disappeared.

I must admit that I find it most irritating to have someone place his puny and parochial affairs ahead of the matters of great moment in which I am engaged - which reminds me, old man, that the waiter seems to be trying to attract your attention. I think he has your check for you. Please take it from him and let me get ahead with my story.

I went to the basketball game that night and Azazel was with me in my pocket. He kept poking his head above the edge of the pocket in order to watch the game and he would have made a questionable sight if anyone had been watching. His skin is a bright red and on his forehead are two nubbins of horns. It is fortunate, of course, that he didn't come out altogether, for his centimeter-long, muscular tail is both his most prominent and his most nauseating feature.

I am not a great basketball aficionado myself and I rather left it to Azazel to make sense out of what was happening. His intelligence, although demonic rather than human, is intense.

After the game he said to me, "It seems to me, as nearly as I could make out from the strenuous action of the bulky, clumsy and totally uninteresting individuals in the arena, that there was excitement every time that peculiar ball passed through a hoop."

"That's it," I said. "You score a basket, you see."

"Then this protege of yours would become a heroic player of this stupid game if he could throw the ball through the hoop every time?"

"Exactly."

Azazel twirled his tail thoughtfully. "That should not be difficult. I need only adjust his reflexes in order to make him judge the angle, height, force - " He fell into a ruminative silence for a moment, then said, "Let's see, I