Devastated when her dream of becoming a professional ballerina falls through, seventeen-year-old Harper Scott takes a job as a research assistant, wintering over at McMurdo, a U.S. science station at the tip of Antarctica where, for the first time, she considers other possible futures.

In Antarctica, Little Emperor grows from a hatchling who depends on his parents for food and warmth, to an adult, ready to live in the sea on his own.

Following clues provided by the secretive Reddimus Society, the four Alden siblings travel to a dingo sanctuary in Australia and to Shakleton's hut in Antarctica to deliver the fifth and sixth artifacts, and then they work to unmask the traitor traveling with them.