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outcry when it had first decided to build a wood-cellulose-processing plant on its southern shores fifty years earlier. Theresa just hoped that a Greenpeace rubber boat armada would not appear to assail their presence on the lake.
    At least her involvement was relatively harmless, she convinced herself. Her employer, Royal Dutch Shell, had been contracted to survey a section of the lake for reported oil seeps. Nobody said anything about drilling or exploratory wells, and she was confident that would never happen on the lake anyway. The company was just trying to cozy up to the owners of some exploratory Siberian oil fields in hope of landing more significant business.
    Theresa had never heard of the Avarga Oil Consortium before traveling to Siberia but knew there were a variety of oil companies clamoring in the Russian marketplace. A few of the government-sponsored companies, like Yukos and Gazprom, grabbed all the headlines, but, like anywhere in the world, there were always some little wildcatters owning a smaller piece of the pie. From the looks of what she’d seen so far, the Avarga Oil Consortium didn’t even have a piece of the crust.
    â€œThey’re obviously not pumping their revenues into R & D,” she joked to the two Shell technicians that accompanied her as they climbed aboard the leased survey boat.
    â€œClever how they designed her to resemble a decrepit fishing boat,” cracked Jim Wofford, a tall, friendly geophysicist from Arkansas who wore a thick mustache and a ready smile.
    The high-prowed black fishing boat looked like it should have been scuttled years earlier. The exterior paint was peeling everywhere and the whole vessel reeked of wood rot and dead fish. It had been decades since the brightwork had been polished, and only the occasional rainstorm accounted for any washing of the decks. Theresa noted with unease that the bilge pump ran continuously.
    â€œWe do not possess our own sea vessels,” Tatiana said without apology. As the representative from Avarga Oil, she had been the sole interface with the Shell survey team.
    â€œThat’s all right, for what it lacks in space it makes up for in discomfort.” Wofford smiled.
    â€œTrue, but I bet there’s some caviar hiding aboard someplace,” replied Wofford’s partner, Dave Roy, a fellow seismic engineer who spoke in a soft Boston accent. As Roy knew, Lake Baikal was the home to enormous sturgeon that could carry up to twenty pounds of caviar.
    Theresa helped lend a hand as Roy and Wofford lugged aboard their seismic monitors, cable, and towfish, organizing the equipment on the cramped stern deck of the twenty-eight-foot fishing boat.
    â€œCaviar? With your beer tastes?” Theresa chided.
    â€œAs a matter of fact, the two make an excellent combination,” Roy replied with mock seriousness. “The sodium content of caviar produces a hydration craving that is perfectly fulfilled by a malt-based beverage.”
    â€œIn other words, it’s a good excuse to drink more beer.”
    â€œWho needs an excuse to drink beer?” Wofford asked indignantly.
    â€œI give up.” Theresa laughed. “Far be it for me to argue with an alcoholic. Or two.”
    Tatiana looked on without amusement, then nodded toward the boat’s captain when all the equipment had been stowed aboard. A dour-faced man who wore a jacquard tweed hat, the captain’s most notable feature was a wide bulbous nose tinted red from a steady consumption of vodka. Ducking into the small wheelhouse, he fired up the boat’s smoky diesel engine, then released the dock lines. In calm waters, they chugged away from their berth at the small fishing and tourist village of Listvyanka, located on the lake’s southwest shoreline.
    Tatiana unrolled a map of the lake and pointed to an area forty miles north of the town.
    â€œWe shall survey here, at Peschanaya Bay,” she told the geologists. “There have been