General Li and a small group of scientists take to the sea on the helicopter carrier USS "Independence" in an attempt to find the yrr and make contact with them. They discover that the yrr are single-cell organisms that operate in groups (swarms), controlled by a single hive-mind that may have existed for hundreds of millions of years. The yrr form a collective intelligence and have inheritable memories that are passed on by manipulating parts of their DNA. Individual yrr recognize each other by using a specific pheromone.