This is the first chapter of The Penal Preserve, if you haven't read The Universal Good Deal you may want to start at the beginning.

Jane was the first to see the island, because she was the only one who stayed on deck in the driving rain. The island was steep and dark, the slopes thickly wooded with enormous firs. It seemed to fend off what thin light there was. Of course, she thought it was beautiful, and it was indeed a highly romantic region.

Located in the northwest corner of her people’s lands, Welles chose the island because of its isolation, and because it was believed to be uninhabited. Welles intended this colony of prisoners to remain entirely free of contact with the rest of the world. Since their arrival on Earth, the Aliens had continued to penetrate all aspects of Martian society, and it seemed inevitable that the Martians would abandon their traditional ways of living. Although Welles was not opposed to intercourse with the Aliens, she wanted an insurance policy of sorts, and she hoped that the colony where all things Alien were banned would keep the Martians’ old ways of doing things alive.

When Franklin was told that they had arrived, he came on deck, and asked Jane if she wasn’t cold.

‘It’s too late late to try to make a landing today,’ he said. ‘We’re going to stay on the boat until tomorrow. You sure you don’t want to come in?’

‘Don’t you want to go and see what it’s like?’ asked Jane.

‘It’s raining,’ said Franklin. ‘Let’s go in. I think they’ve got some food warmed up for dinner.’

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ said Jane.

‘It looks dangerous,’ said Franklin.

Because the colony was to be entirely self-sufficient, a location had been selected on the western side of the island with access to the most suitable land for agriculture and where a sizable stream flowed down to the sea. But the island was very rugged, dominated by steep rocky hills and towering forests. None of it was particularly suitable for agriculture.

Certainly, every settlement in an unknown and thickly wooded country must be more or less tentative, and the objections to the island were not so evident at the beginning as they now are.¹ But it seems clear that it was never calculated for a self-sufficient settlement.² Of the moral condition of the island, nothing good could be expected, and little favorable is remembered.³