THE WEREYAM
                                 By Kent Patterson
                                     ****

WHEN THE CLOYING ODOR of scorched marshmallow and hot yam filled the
greenhouse, Bill Mauer cursed softly. Another damned premature. He got up from
his watchman’s cot. The light of the full moon gleamed on the glass walls, throwing
ghostly shadows over a jungle of yam vines as high as his head. He could see
nothing, but the smell of hot candied yam grew stronger by the second.

      Sighing, Bill picked up his auto-rooter. Nothing to do but find the premature
and dig it out before the yam burst and let the bad strain of nanocritters contaminate
the whole patch.

       Bioengineered self-cooking yams had made his fortune. Self-cookers let even
the busiest houseperson serve his/her family with nutritious meals with all of the rich
goodness of genuine home cooking. But somehow the new, improved yams with the
automatic self-candying option just weren’t working out. He should have known
better than to buy his yam nanotechnology from a firm calling itself “WerTech
Transformations.”

       As Bill walked down the shadowy corridor sniffing out the premature, yam
plants rustled in the wind, their dry leaves scratching against the glass walls. Now a
yam runner caught around Bill’s ankle, and he bent over to unwrap it.

       Wait a minute. There was no wind inside the greenhouse. Spooked, Bill ripped
the yam loose, but a dozen others gripped his other ankle. He kicked viciously, but
more and more vines clutched at his arms and legs. He tried to scream, but a burning
hot candied yam thrust through his lips, cramming itself into his mouth and choking
off the air.

       A sharp yam stem plunged into his jugular, and a hot wave of pain struck as
tiny nanocritters surged through his arteries, multiplying in their millions,
transforming every protein, every molecule of his body. His arms and legs withered
away, and his torso grew large, globular, yam shaped.

       And now Bill, for the first time in his life, understood yams. He understood
the softness of the mothering soil. He understood sunshine, the feel of rain, gentle as
butterfly’s wings, upon yam leaves. But most of all, he understood yam pain, the
brutal heat of an oven, the steel of a knife slashing through the skin.

      Now he understood forks.

       He understood cruel white teeth tearing at the tender yellow flesh, and all the
degrading vocabulary of man’s inhumanity to yams. Rage flowed through his body,
white, screaming anger. He felt a thirst for vengeance which must be satisfied, and
could only be satisfied with blood, enough blood to drown centuries of oppression,
millennia of baked yams, boiled yams, yams on the side, yams with butter, yams
with sour cream, and worse, yes, worse than all of those — candied yams.

       Now the light of the full moon gleamed on the glass walls of the greenhouse.
Bill’s transformation was complete. Like a huge round moon he rolled to the
greenhouse door, and a great rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches
toward the grocery stores to be born.

                                        ****

       Kent Patterson works as Regional Editor for Oregon Business Magazine. His
short fiction has appeared in Analog, Amazing Stories, and Pulphouse. He has also
written nine software manuals, edited a sports magazine, and written advertising
copy even less believable than his fiction. “As far as I know, “Kent writes,” this is
the first yam to star in a story for a major magazine. I hope it provides a role model
for talented young yams everywhere.”