Exile to Hell

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Exile to Hell is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It appeared in the May 1968 issue of Analog.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

After a man, known only as Jenkins, accidentally causes damage to a computer system that potentially could affect a society built below ground and run by computers, he is put on trial. The trial, which is carried out by computers programmed with prosecution and defence arguments, finds Jenkins guilty of equipment damage, a major crime by the society's laws, He is sentenced to permanent exile.

Only at the end of the story is it revealed that the society is built beneath the surface of the moon, with a totally conditioned and computer-controlled environment, and that the place of exile is on the surface of a hostile Earth


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