 A woman explorer accepts an invitation to a penal colony to investigate its justice system, where the condemned is executed without any defense. In this world of judgment and condemnation in a desolate place, she confronts an officer who is getting ready to execute a soldier. The officer demonstrates the apparatus, an instrument used to inflict capital punishment. The explorer s silent disapproval of the system brings a surprising and climactic outcome for the future of the officer, prisoner and the colony.