After the disastrous drought of 2867 almost wiped out the IndWorld colony of Nilbex ™*, enterprising biogenetic researchers were engaged to prevent the catastrophe from reoccurring. It was a story common to fledgling colonies: environmental stress forced humans to consume their animal flocks as they became competitors for scarce vegetables and grains. However, on a colonial planet, it was far easier to reestablish crops from a seed bank than to undergo the expensive and resource-heavy process of restoring vanished animal species from genetic templates. It was thus desirable to have a food source intended solely for domesticated herds which was capable of withstanding extreme conditions. With this in mind, T. perversii was engineered. Unpalatable to humans, when the plant is well-cared for, it grows normally. In times of environmental stress, however, spite shamrock kicks into a super growth phase, multiplying rapidly. This phase is readily identifiable as the normally three-leaved plant sprouts an additional leaf to facilitate increased photosynthesis (hence the alternate name “cowluck.”) The plant soon exhausts itself and dies back entirely within a period of months. By this time, the weather may have normalized, allowing colonists to reestablish their normal feed crops. Unfortunately, what seems a brilliant idea on a colonial world is a nightmare on a developed one. In places where spite shamrock has become established, a dry spell can trigger an outbreak bad enough to completely destroy all other ground cover. Paradoxically, the only way to control spite shamrock is through aggressive watering and fertilization.
Driscoll Garrett, Spite, pencil on rag paper.
I was back. Why was I back?
Tara emerged from the bath. “Ailann?” she said. She was as surprised as I was.
I poured myself a scotch. “I don’t understand,” I murmured. “Cillian handled it today, when I completely fucked up. Suibhne handled it yesterday when I broke down. Why am I here?” I downed my drink and flopped back onto the couch.
“At a time like this, the people need the Archon,” said Tara, snatching the glass from my hand. “It’s enough, Ailann. You’ve never let your drinking interfere with your duties before.”
“There’s never been a situation like this before,” I said. “Trees burning. If they die, they might have to return to the nul-universe. You can’t know what that’s like. You can’t imagine…”
But I remembered. I clutched at Tara’s hand and started to cry.
Tara sat next to me. She stroked the back of my hand. “It’s too much to ask of you,” she said. “Maybe a different Archon – Aran or Till. In such a situation, it would only be natural for the Archon to show a sterner face.”
It was a good idea – but I couldn’t raise my arms. “I and I won’t let me,” I told her. “But you could use the correspondences to evoke one of them.”
“I could,” said Tara. “I could burn the veladora for Aran. But Ash doesn’t want that, does he?”
“No. But He gave you that system to put power into your hands. If you use it, He won’t resist you.”
“Ash has a reason for the things he does. He gave me the means to call any emanation for my pleasure, but to use it to overrule his better judgment wouldn’t be right.” She laid her head on my shoulder. “Why don’t we just go to bed?”
We retired; she curled up in my arms and fell asleep almost immediately. It was only then I noticed how weary she was. This day had taken its toll on her. I had left her to be the strong one, completely derelict in my duty.
I was pathetic. How could I go on?
« So you’re gonna run away from it? » said Cillian.
« Ailann, » said Dermot. « Stop thinking. Just focus on Tara. Just listen to the sound of her breathing. »
I closed my eyes, feeling the warmth. I wanted to memorize her smell, the softness of her hair. I remembered how hazy my human recollection of her had been, and felt my jaw clenching. I could never trust branch memory completely again.
I could never trust myself again.
Tara stirred in her sleep. “Ash,” she murmured, clutching at me. She did that every night.
I had never understood it before.
Her eyes, half-open, met mine. “At last,” she said. “Now I can really trust you.”
She went back to sleep.
Now I can really trust you? Now, that it’s impossible to trust myself? What did that mean? My mind raced.
« I understand, » said Dermot. « Because I and I’s n’aashet n’aaverti had never before wavered, in his supreme confidence, he never conceptualized the possibility of loss. »
« When you don’t think you can lose, you take unnecessary risks, » said Lugh. « Tara understood that. I and I created me to understand it, but it wasn’t enough. Losing Owen isn’t the same as losing everything. »
« Even that one time, when we believed she was dead, I and I knew she wasn’t, » said Daniel. « And when she actually died, I and I knew how to save her – Suibhne had known it for years. This is the first time we know what she felt like when she saw me thrown off that cliff. »
« You can’t run away from the pain anymore, » said Tarlach. « The pain is the point. »
But how could I stand it? No matter how hard we try, there’s no way to guarantee our absolute safety. We could continue to minimize the risk, but in an eternity, something will slip up. A mistake will be made, an accident will happen, something we can’t foresee, and it will all come to an end.
I did understand. This is what it means to be human.
And then I felt energy stirring in the roots of the grove, unfathomable amounts of power surging through the trunks and branches, rising into the form of a flower which becomes the wings of a moth, the wings of a man who is not human.
He spoke without speaking, and the silence reverberated with his unspoken command:
DO BETTER.
Do better.
I needed a drink.
I didn’t want to disturb her, though. Somehow Patrick could manage to slip out of bed to work on his writing, and slip back in before dawn, and never wake her. But then again, everything Patrick does is smooth, while my every move is a grandiose gesture. If I tried to get up, she’d know it.
Morning came. Well past morning. Lady Lorma rang the bell. “Your Holiness, Your Eminence, your presence is requested at the Cathedral of War.”
“It’s not even eight,” muttered Tara. “How am I supposed to handle a crisis without a full night’s sleep?”
I rose and went for the decanter.
“Ailann,” Tara said, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” I turned back to look at her. Her eyes were enormous, the brown depths of a shadowed forest, flickering with a faint red fire which reminded us that she wasn’t quite human anymore.
“I shouldn’t have…I was so short sighted.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It was my brilliant idea all those years ago to make a god out of you. I half-believed it myself. I had no idea of the weight it would place on your shoulders. It’s too much to ask.”
I put down the decanter. “Tara, I’m just a man. The amount of power available to me as Archon – my human brain can’t even begin to comprehend it. But Ailann Tiarnan is also a man who is part of a Cu’enashti entity. I and I – Ashtara – is so much more. But the pleroma hasn’t existed for even a century. Species like the SongLuminants, the Eer-gaaani, they’ve had millions of rotations to adjust. We’re still feeling our way through.” I sat down on the bed next to her. “I’ll do better,” I said. “I promise.”
“I’ll help you,” she replied. “I’ve been so hard on you. When you emanated, you were literally the man of my dreams. I expected you to solve all of my problems. That was stupid and unfair. It’s not too far wrong to say you’re a god in the old polytheistic sense, but you’re not the transcendent God of the great monotheisms. That’s a distinction that gets lost on a lot of people, even ones that should know better. Like Johannon, when he starts going off about that ‘Archon of the Heart’ business. But you have one great advantage. You don’t have to do it alone. To be Cu’enashti means that you don’t have to do it alone. Suibhne and Cillian took over because they can, but also because they should. Cillian was the right emanation to deal with that situation yesterday. He’s a military strategist. He can’t heal sick children, and he can’t make a speech to inspire humanity to re-envision itself, either.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I have my own burden to carry. I don’t have to carry everyone else’s.” To my surprise, tears welled up in my eyes. “I wanted to kill him.”
“Cillian?”
I nodded. “When he first grew, I advocated amputating his branch. I understood so little! I couldn’t have imagined how much I’d come to depend upon him.”
« Forget it, » said Cillian. « I forgave you for that a long time ago. I need all my strength for the battles ahead of us. Fighting battles I’ve already won is pointless. »
As I clumsily brushed the tears from my beard, I couldn’t suppress a grin. I’m a jealous god. By definition, I fight battles I’ve already won.
I stood, taking Tara’s hand. “Let’s get as much information as we can,” I said. “Then I’ll make a statement to the public.”
*****
“It’s making less sense by the minute,” Zosim told us. “There have been two more attempts by Cu’ensali to burn Cu’enashti nau’gsh, and a retaliation for one of them – four Cu’ensali trees, again in the Grand Nebula Forest, again claimed almost immediately by the Mothman Protection Posse. We saw it on the satellites – it was a group of five mothmen, big ones. They were impossible to miss, but also impossible to stop. However, there have been at last count thirty-eight additional tree burnings, all over the globe. We thought at first they might be strikes by lone Cu’enashti copycats, or another organization, but the satellites picked up nothing. The probability of something as big and powerful as a mothman getting by us thirty-eight times…”
“Not all mothmen are giants,” said Tara. “But I admit that thirty-eight is improbable. Could it be human sympathizers? Even if they used something as crude as petrol, a single Cu’ensali would be too small to stop it.”
“Very doubtful,” Zosim replied. “We might lose one or two in the deep forests, but our scanning technology is calibrated to find humans. It’s actually harder to locate mothmen although they’re much more visually obvious.”
“How are the two Cu’enashti that were attacked?” I asked.
“One suffered enough burning to result in memory loss. The second was stopped almost before it started. The tree looked undefended, but as it turned out, the Cu’enashti had married into a family of dukk hunters, and they had staked out her nau’gsh behind a camouflaged stand.”
“And the Cu’ensali couldn’t sense it,” I mused. “The average Cu’enashti could tell you how many people were in this building. The average Cu’enashti could tell you how many ironmites are in this building. But we know very little about Cu’ensali sensitivity. Apparently, their sensory capacity is as limited as their alchemical abilities.”
“There are ironmites in the War Cathedral?” asked Tara. “How many are there?”
“416. They get into everything on Dolparessa. It’s beyond me why the Flaxxshi brought them from Skarsia.”
“Call the exterminator,” said Tara. “But you’re right, Zosim. It makes no sense at all – about the burnings, that is, not the ironmites. Ironmites make perfect sense. They eat metal, not wood. They were put here, like every other non-Terran form of animal life, to discourage anyone from settling on the Flaxxshi’s garden planet/hidden energy source.”
“Oh, there’s something else,” said Zosim. “We found these near some of the burnt-out Cu’ensali trees.” He held out a small plastic pouch with a biomedical waste seal. In it were several tiny identachips.
“Oh,” I murmured. “So that’s why Jaxxon was using one.”
Tara looked at me quizzically.
“If the Cu’ensali are cooperating with the Cu’enmerengi, they can’t use DNA or retina scans for security. Cu’ensali don’t have either. Those are small enough for Cu’ensali to carry, but inconvenient for a Cu’enmerengi, which is why Jaxxon had glued his to a card.”
“It has a virus imbued in the chip,” said Zosim. “I mean a real virus, not a chip virus. The weird thing is that the medical division reports it’s harmless. I don’t understand.”
“That’s the only way a Cu’ensali could carry it,” I said. “Nul-energy interacts with bioenergy, but passes straight through non-living matter.”
“This doesn’t get us any farther with the burnings,” said Lord Danak.
“Cüinn is considering the possibilities,” I reported. “Right now, his two most probable theories both sound equally unlikely. The first is that the trees spontaneously combusted. The second is that the Cu’ensali are burning their own trees.”
“Those are ridiculous theories,” said Zosim. “How about this one: CenGov is involved, and they’re using nanobots small enough to get by the surveillance sats?”
“Possible,” injected Lord Danak, who had been listening silently. “The Cu’ensali might be in alliance with CenGov. Or CenGov might be acting to frame the Cu’enashti, to fan the flames, so to speak.”
Tara shook her head. “Cüinn sounds like an idiot, but he’s not. We’re forgetting one important fact of Cu’endhari biology: there’s no discernable difference between a juvenile Cu’endhari and a Cu’ensali tree. The only way you can tell is by watching to see if a Cu’ensali inhabits the tree. Maybe they’re killing the saplings as a way of getting to the Cu’enashti?”
“There are more Cu’ensali than either Cu’enmerengi or Cu’enashti by a large margin,” I said. “If they killed the young trees, they’d hurt themselves more than us.”
“We know next to nothing about them,” said Tara. “It seems a natural human response to want to bring more of our own kind into the world, but maybe the Cu’ensali don’t mind if they cut off migration from the nul-universe, as long as it means no more Cu’enmerengi and Cu’enashti?”
I could feel my heart beginning to race, my chest tightening in panic. “I can’t believe that,” I said, forcing my voice to be steady. “To consign others of our kind to that horrible fate…” I looked up sharply at Tara, grabbing her arm. “We have to expand the colonization effort,” I said. “And to as many places as possible. We need to locate all the rifts in this galaxy and spread across Draco – the Houl be damned! We still have Circinus, and I’ll negotiate for more exploitation galaxies from the Combine.”
“Your Holiness,” said Lord Danak, “colonization is quite an undertaking, and I might suggest that right now, there are more pressing matters at home…”
“You don’t understand!” I shouted. “The Cu’ensali would never burn young trees. You don’t know what it’s like to be trapped in the nul-universe! And if they are, then it’s an abomination, they’re heartless past belief…”
“Your Holiness,” said Danak gently, handing me a tumbler of scotch. I stared at it for a moment, thinking I really shouldn’t, but then thinking that if I made a big deal of refusing, everyone present would really know something was wrong.
“Ladies first,” Tara snapped, snatching it out of my hand and downing it. She plucked the ice out of it and threw it, narrowly missing Danak’s head.
Danak flinched. He shot me an apologetic glance which said, Sorry – we both know how she can be.
She’d covered for me at her own expense. In truth, she rarely had outbursts of temper or bad behavior anymore, but reputations die hard.
And then I felt like I was washed out to sea in a wave of joy, floating in what we emanations call “the cloud of bliss.” It was an emotional response directly from I and I, the purest happiness in reaction to something Tara had done.
Tara had understood what I needed. Tara helped me.
Tara saved me the other day.
Reciprocation was possible.
I and I was not alone.
And then I realized that all over the world, mothers-in-law were priming their guns with ecoshot and dukk hunters were staying awake all night to protect their wives. The Cu’enashti were not alone.
That’s why we came here. That’s why we chose to come into existence.
“We have to stop them,” I said. “In order to do that, we have to know why they’re doing it. And why now? Why not a hundred, five hundred years ago? Why now, when we’re all so happy?”
“Maybe the Cu’ensali aren’t happy,” said Tara. “Is it possible that it’s because the Cu’enashti have it so good? Maybe fewer are choosing to become Cu’ensali, and they resent it?”
“Cüinn says that’s the most sensible theory he’s heard yet,” I told her. “He says he wishes he could back it up with data, but that’s impossible. Since we’ve never tracked Cu’ensali trees, and since Cu’ensali trees and juvenile Cu’endhari trees are identical, we have no way of knowing if the proportion of Cu’ensali has shifted.”
“You have to make a statement,” said Lord Danak. “Do you have any idea what you’re going to say?”
I nodded. “I’m going to ask the people to increase their vigilance, but to refrain from further violence. I’m going to reassure them that the military, police and emergency personnel are on full alert. And I’m going to appeal to the Cu’ensali to negotiate – to say that we have no idea how to address their grievances as long as we don’t know what they are. Also, I’m granting amnesty to any of the Cu’enmerengi who attacked the Cantor Tree if they’re willing to talk.”
“The Cantor will love that,” muttered Tara.
I shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned, stopping more attacks is more important than avenging the ones which have already occurred. But don’t think they’ll go unpunished. I can only speak for the Skarsian government. I have no power in the Convocation – and do you think for a minute that a murdering tree will be allowed to return to the forest?”
*****
After my address, we were stopped in the corridor by Earl Mac’kellr. “You don’t intend to honor that promise, do you?”
“I always keep my word,” I said.
“This is his bad advice, isn’t it?” Mac’kellr said, pointing at Danak. “You know that the MPP won’t let it go. If you won’t burn those trees, they will.”
“The MPP are also guilty of murder,” Tara interrupted. “Are their trees to be burned as well?”
“A preposterous suggestion, Your Eminence,” he replied. “One unworthy of your background. Cu’ensali aren’t people. At best, they’re like dogs, and now, rabid dogs.”
“They seem intelligent enough to coordinate an attack,” I said mildly. “Aren’t you even curious why they’re attacking?”
“Not in the least. I want justice, and I want the attacks against my wife’s people to stop. The fastest way to accomplish that might be deforestation.”
I was shocked. And he was a human – for a human to suggest that – not good.
“Perhaps the implications of that are unclear to you,” said Tara. “We can’t tell the difference between Cu’ensali trees and juvenile Cu’endhari. Destroy all of them, and they’ll be no new Cu’enashti.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Mac’kellr. “I said deforestation. Of course we wouldn’t kill the trees in the family groves. And everybody knows that most new Cu’enashti are coming from the grove trees and not the wild ones.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Tara.
“It’s clear and simple. Trees that emanate people are more likely to have offspring that emanate people. The Cu’ensali are mostly in the forests.”
“We have no data on that,” said Tara.
“Cüinn says he’s right,” I told her.
“What? How does he know?”
“How did I know how many ironmites are in the Cathedral of War? We have no idea how many forest trees are Cu’ensali, but we know exactly how many grove trees are Cu’enmerengi and Cu’enashti, and it is a much greater proportion than in the wild.”
“You see?’ said Mac’kellr triumphantly. “We don’t need the wild juvenile Cu’endhari. In fact, if we burned the forests, we could then replant with seedlings from families that don’t currently own land for groves.”
“How very opportunistic,” said Danak, smiling.
“Common sense,” said Mac’kellr. “But how would a Siderian know what’s best for the people of Dolparessa?”
“I’ve had enough,” said Tara. “I’m not about to sabotage our ecosystem in a moment of panic – or self-interest. Consider that there are millions of trees, and so far, the tally is only twenty-five attacks.”
“Sixty-eight.” Zosim started in surprise. Mac’kellr grinned. “Come on, perhaps you can keep that sort of information hidden from humans, but from Cu’enashti?”
“Lord Titus, if you know anything about the other attacks on Cu’ensali…” I began.
“Unfortunately, no. But whoever is responsible – I approve.”
*****
It was an exhausting day of continual briefings and updates to the press. The attack toll continued to increase; however, attacks on Cu’enashti became less effective while the opposite was true of attacks on Cu’ensali/juvenile trees. Retribution was swift and effective, the MPP always taking out four trees for each Cu’enashti attacked. And something entirely new happened – a group of Cu’ensali successfully attacked a Cu’enmerengi. Dryads have only one trunk, only one personality. This was something that humans could clearly understand as murder.
Shortly after lunch, Zosim pulled me aside. “Perhaps Her Eminence can handle the public for a while,” he said. “I have an idea, but I need your assistance.”
I followed Zosim into a private conference room of the War Cathedral. I was surprised to see that Raoul and Lady Claris were already present. “As noted, the satellite grid has been able to capture images of the attacks by the Mothman Protection Posse. It’s always the same five. And then I realized something so obvious I should resign my position for not getting it sooner. Mothmen are distinctive in appearance. I don’t know who they are – but somebody does, right?”
“True,” I said. “But I might not be the best person to ask, since I’m away from Dolparessa so much. You should really call the Cantor. She literally knows every Cu’enashti and Cu’enmerengi.”
“We thought of that,” said Raoul, “but it’s a pretty sensitive topic to her. We thought that we wouldn’t disturb her unless it was absolutely necessary.”
“You’re right,” I said. “You have your father’s sense of tact. Perhaps you should seek a career in diplomacy as well.”
Raoul laughed. “Hardly. Patrick is amazing. Besides, I’m happy as an artist.”
And then Mac’kellr’s words came back to me. Ashkaman – Raoul and Charles – did share some of Patrick’s characteristics. Lilith, on the other hand, was hardwood. Jamey had immediately recognized her as Cillian’s, even as an unemanated sapling.
The seeds weren’t just more likely to become mothmen and dryads. They actually inherited characteristics of the parent branch. But how could that be if their purpose in life was to fulfil the dreams of their Chosen? “Let’s look at the footage,” I said, my head swimming with the implications.
Zosim was right – they were the same five mothmen. All the while we examined the clips, I turned the question over and over in my mind. The choosing was a mystery. The choosing was mutual. I and I chose Tara, but Tara chose the Atlas seed. Just as Esau St. John pulled forth Lilith, but only be reflecting her own dreams back at her, the same dreams that Thoughtful 45 projects to keep her sane. Ashkaman chose the man who had nurtured and cared for Atlas, a man who reaped the selfless devotion he had given all those years. Even the Cantor, who had been ripped from her tree by Elma, must’ve dreamed the prophetess: on the surface the Cantor was steady, predictable to Elma’s wildness, but below the surface of both was something cold, detached, alone.
“Ailann, that’s…that’s Merhna, isn’t it?” stuttered Raoul.
It was. That meant big trouble.
Claris snorted. “We should’ve known that Tightassra would be behind this.”
“Tight…” Zosim blurted.
“Titusashra,” I said. “Earl Mac’kellr’s wife.”
“That little one with the purplish tinge to his wings – his name is Ashmartina,” said Claris. “And I don’t know the name of the one with the glowing white hair, but I’ve seen her hanging around at the Convocation sometimes.”
“It’s harder than it looks,” said Raoul to Zosim. “Mothmen don’t like to be seen in their natural form, even by other mothmen. They all want to pass for human. The Cantor is probably the only one who has seen everyone naked, so to speak, because she’s the midwife.”
“It’s hard to believe that we could miss that big one, though,” said Claris. “The female who looks like the leader. She’s got to be powerful, and her tree must be enormous.”
Wait. I should know her. Didn’t I know her? Once again, I was forced to rely on human sensations, human memory. Our trees didn’t perceive nul-energy in the same way they perceived matter and energy in Universe Prime. I could only fall back on Ailann Tiarnan’s vision.
“I was just thinking that,” said Raoul. “Isn’t the last one Ashvela? I’ve never actually seen him in his mothman form, but he’s a close friend of Ashsylla, you know, Donal Hebbick, the one who got burned.”
“Well, that’s three positive identifications and one lead,” said Zosim. “Much better than we were doing. How should we handle this, Your Holiness?”
“Very carefully,” I said. “One issue is that we don’t know for certain whether all the trees they burned had achieved sentience or not. And the last thing we need is to stat a conflict between the Skarsian government and the Convocation. I’m afraid I’m going to have to involve the Cantor.”
I stopped in the doorway. “Captain Zosim, please tell my wife where I’m going. Tell her to expect me back before sunset.”
*****
I had thought to find the Cantor in the sacred grove, but she wasn’t there. As it turned out, she was at Wyrd Elma’s hotel suite. This was unusual for her; Elma’ashra hated the city. However, it’s likely that Elma wouldn’t have been comfortable out-of-doors for an extended period of time. Maybe the Cantor was deferring to her Chosen. Maybe she just didn’t want to be alone after what had happened.
“This is a very delicate matter,” I began.
“Twenty-six,” said Elma. “Twenty-five, twenty-four…”
I stared at her while she counted down two more. Since she was showing no sign of stopping, I continued. “It seems like Titusashra is involved in these attacks.”
“Sixteen,” said Elma. “Fifteen, fourteen…”
The Cantor looked at me. Her eyes filled with tears. I had never seen her cry before, never. Not even when Elma ignored and neglected her.
“Eleven, ten, nine…”
“We have to do something. I know you’re grieving, and I’m sorry…”
Our eyes locked. A powerful tree. An enormous tree.
“One,” said Elma, as I lowered my eyes. I knew I recognized her.
“Don’t you get sick of always being right?” the Cantor hissed in a tone of voice I never would’ve dreamed of using to my Chosen.
“This time, it was Tara that was right,” said Elma. “Hellborne is a real piece of work.”
“You, of all Cu’enashti, should understand,” said the Cantor, turning on me. “She grew from a blackened stump. All she wants is revenge for her dead sister.”
Cillian. Owen. Jack. Lorcan. I understood perfectly. It takes time and patience to heal that kind of trauma. Time, and patience, and love – but they had all of us. Hellborne was insane, and had no Lugh to comfort her, no Tarlach to articulate the problem.
“Merhna’s taking advantage of the situation,” I realized. “She’s every bit as opportunistic as her husband.” Then I understood: tree and Chosen reflect each other’s dreams. That’s why Merhna was the first to disclose, unafraid – and the first to marry. She knew that Mac’kellr would never turn down the offer of immortality.
“And what about the Cu’ensali?” said the Cantor. “Have you made any progress in bringing them to justice? Or did you forget that we were the first attacked?”
I didn’t know what to say. Then Elma said, “Jaxxon is waiting for you on the bench near the bluedog stand in the northwest corner of the Ipsissimal Park. If you go, you’ll only get trapped again.”
“But what else can I do?”
Elma rolled her eyes and sighed impatiently. “If Ailann Tiarnan goes, he’ll fail,” she said.
It’s obvious, said Davy, in a tone of voice that indicated he and Elma were in total agreement.
My arms raised, and I stepped out of myself.
“Aw man,” said Donovan Chase. “I don’t fucking believe this.”
*The colonization of Nilbex was sponsored by the manufacturers of a popular antidepressant, who retained naming rights – trans.