In the Penal Colony
A Visitor arrives at a remote penal colony to witness an execution by a machine that inscribes a prisoner’s crimes into his flesh before killing him. The Officer, devoted to the device and its dead inventor, hopes the Visitor will endorse its supposed redemptive purpose. The Visitor opposes the procedure but refuses to intervene. The Officer releases the prisoner and takes his own place in the machine. It malfunctions, kills him quickly, and destroys itself; the Visitor leaves the island.