Under the Double Moon (1989)

A village on the planet Undine, a water world of vast oceans dotted by islands.

It is the Year of the Empress (Y.E.) 1332. We are in the far future, in a dusty corner of the known universe where the eternally youthful Empress rules a federation of loosely linked planet-nations from the Imperial Planet, the largest of the Seven Worlds. It is the time of the Fish Festival on Undine, when the double moons are in conjunction, and the Undinians – both human and Gaxulta – celebrate their oceanic livelihood for a few boisterous days of carnival each year. Every- one wears masks and costumes, and any and all sorts of non-violent behavior are tolerated.

ACT ONE

Scene One
The opera opens in the cottage of Krillig, the fisherman, and Kanaxa, his wife, the town fortune-teller. When he enters, she accuses him of drinking sea-wine and visiting Melak’s wife. He asks why she has become so cold, and reminds her that before their marriage the villagers thought she was a witch. They quarrel, but drawn together by shared memory, embrace.

Scene Two
The twins, Xola and Tarj, sit idly at their mother’s fortune-telling table. She has warned them not to show their true telepathic powers; but, bored and frustrated, they first read a stranger’s mind, then torment their father’s friend Melak with the infidelity they see in his wife’s thoughts. Their mother, Kanaxa, enters and tells them to stop making trouble and go for a sail.

Scene Three
The stranger, who is a government inspector sent by the Empress, speaks to the villagers asking help in finding young mind- readers who he says are dangerous and out of control. In fact, the Empress is dying and needs the powers of young people like Tarj and Xola to revive her.

Scene Four
The twins are confronted at sea by an amphibious creature who explains he is a Gaxulta, a man transformed to live under water. He warns them of danger ahead. When asked why he is showing himself to them, he tells them he is their father, and their mother will join him soon in a life under water.

Scene Five
Walking on the beach, the Inspector denounces Undine and all its people. The Gaxulta rises from the water and declares they will no longer allow children to be taken and used by the Empress to feed her own powers. The Inspector threatens the end of the Gaxulta way of life if they do not give up the children.

Scene One
The twins, puzzled by the Gaxulta’s claim to be their father, try to work it out. As they talk, Krillig enters, furious that they have been telling people unwelcome truths instead of providing standard fortunes as they were trained to do. They argue, and Krillig strikes out at Tarj. Xola, infuriated, uses her powers to stop him. Krillig exits, vowing to get rid of both of them.

Scene Two
The Inspector tries to lure the twins away to the Imperial School, offering them a life of adventure. He shows them passports which will allow them to go to any of the worlds in the Empire.

Scene Three
The Gaxulta meets Kanaxa on the beach. She is afraid, but they affirm their love, and she begins her transformation to Gaxulta.

Scene Four
Melak, who has seen Kanaxa and the Gaxulta on the beach, describes the changes in her with horror to the Inspector, the twins and the villagers. The twins rush after her. The Inspector, afraid of losing them, leads Krillig, Melak and the villagers to the beach.

Scene Five
The twins surprise Kanaxa and the Gaxulta on the beach and demand explanations. Melak, Krillig, the Inspector, and the villagers join them; in the end, the sea claims its own. Having refused the Inspector’s invitation, the twins must choose whether to follow their mother and father or to strike out on their own.

THE CHOICE

Telepathically gifted humans must find the Gaxulta themselves. They may encounter a true Gaxulta at Festival time, or they may sense a stillness in the cacophony of voices and go seeking. There is freedom, beneath the water, to refine and practice telepathic skills, but there is loss, too; the loss of family, friends, and the trappings of civilization. In a society where technology has begun to break down, the Gaxulta are intelligent thinkers and healers, but instead of trying to fix things they have decided to abandon them. Casting off their clothes and their old bodies they embrace the freedom of the vast Undinean oceans. No Gaxulta are born; they are all people who have chosen the quite painful physical change required to become the people of the sea. This is the CHOICE. They transform themselves into streamlined, brightly scaled amphibians using the WAY, a discipline of the mind which can affect physical reality. Once done, there is no going back. The Gaxulta (the word can refer either to the community as a whole or to a single member) live an unstructured, contemplative life in the ocean in small communities, and learn to cultivate and control the gifts treated so censoriously on land.