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'I know what it means literally, Roz, but its accepted usage means to watch wild animals.'

'Perhaps you watch the wild animals while you're travelling,' suggested Chris.

'What?'

'Just a thought.'

'Anyway,' said Bernice, 'the Doctor says there's a town about an hour's walk down the coast. I thought I'd go and have a look. Do you want to come?'

'Seems like a reasonable idea,' said Roz. 'I'll go and put my armour on.'

'I don't think you'll need the armour,' said Bernice.

'What if we run into those wild animals?' asked Roz. She turned to Chris. 'Cwej, you too.'

Chris gave Bernice an if-it-makesher-happy look and followed Roz to put on his armour.

'Really,' said Bernice. 'The Doctor said it was safe here.' She thought about that for a moment and went to find a knife that would fit into her boot.

***

The base of the villa was completely surrounded by forest. There were three tracks leading away from the front door and Roz and Bernice let Chris choose which one to take, partly because he claimed to have charted its route from the roof of the villa the day before, but mostly because they could then blame him if they got lost. Bernice was pleased to see that both he and Roz had at least decided to leave their helmets and blasters at home.

The track was little more than a sandy path that twisted and turned its way down through the conifers. Once they got amongst the trees the air was still and warm. Bernice could smell wet loam, leaf-mould and under it all the sharp tang of the sea.

Chris went bounding down the track ahead of them and vanished around the first corner. Roz and Bernice followed on at a more dignified pace. Bernice asked the older woman what 'Inyathi'

meant.

'It's my clan name,' Roz told her.

'Is it significant?'

'It's isiXhosa for buffalo,' said Roz. 'According to my grandmother it meant we weren't supposed to eat buffaloes.'

'What, never? No buffalo burgers?' asked Bernice. 'No buffalo fricassee or buffalo a l'orange?

I'm shocked. What is a buffalo?'

'Big ugly hoofed quadruped,' said Roz, 'with horns. Last one died in captivity in 2193.'

'I suppose they were notoriously stubborn and bad-tempered?'

'How did you know?'

'Just a wild guess,' said Bernice.

The track angled steeply down the side of the hill. As it switched back and forth they caught occasional flashes of blue sea through gaps in the trees. Bernice found herself whistling as they strolled along, an old jaunty ballad that took all of thirty seconds to get on Roz's nerves.

The track led into an area of dunes at the base of the hills. The conifers gave way to gnarled little trees with spreads of broad oval leaves. The small trees gave way to tufts of dune grass, wiry long-bladed plants that sought to fix the windblown sand in place. The tufts grew fewer and the sand finer until finally the dunes became mere mounds of sand. It was a difficult surface to walk on, especially for Roz in her heavy boots. It didn't seem to bother Chris who ran up the last dune, reached the top and yelled, 'I can see the sea.'

'I'm terribly happy for you,' muttered Roz as she laboured after him.

'And I think there's a beach-bar too,' called Chris.

Roz and Bernice glanced at each other and picked up the pace.

If it was a beach-bar it wasn't much of one: just half a dozen circular tables with matching chairs plonked down on the edge of the dunes. The beach itself was much more impressive, a kilometre-long crescent of pristine yellow sand between two rocky headlands. It was the kind of beach that got texture-mapped into fraudulent holiday brochures. Bernice assumed that iSanti Jeni lay just beyond the eastern headland, providing that the Doctor had been telling the truth.

'You know,' said Chris, 'I've been examining that beach.'

'I know where this is going,' said Bernice. 'And what are your conclusions?'

'I think it's safe,' said Chris.

'Really?' said Roz.

'I think it's really safe,' said Chris. 'Possibly the safest beach I have ever seen. In fact I would go as far as to say that it is the very epitome