It's 1859 and a ship sailing from England to an Australian penal colony is in danger on the High Seas. When the ship wrecks, the only survivors make their way to a desert island that happens to be rich in diamonds. As a result, two of the survivors, Jess Dorsett and Betsy Fletcherand, grow extremely rich. Skip to the 1990s when their descendant, Maeve Dorsett, is leading a cruise ship on a tour of an Antarctic island. When a mysterious plague begins killing off passengers, everyone except Maeve is confused. She knows her family is testing a new technology involving undersea sound waves that has the potential to kill millions of people. It's up to a passenger named Pitt to put a halt to the Dorsett family's megalomaniacal ambitions.