The Devil's Asteroid

A man exiled by Martian authorities is abandoned on a tiny, Earthlike asteroid where other human convicts have been left to fend for themselves. Newcomers are temporarily raised to leadership, but survivors warn that prolonged residence causes biological regression: people gradually devolve into progressively lower animal forms. The narrative follows the exile as he confronts the island's shifting social order, the creeping loss of humanity among compatriots, and the moral and practical consequences of living under an alien punishment that replaces execution with slow degeneration.