'Our caravan broke down up there,' the
Doctor waved his hand in the general direction.
'A wheel, an axle?' Marco enquired.
'Something of that nature,' the Doctor
said vaguely.
'Then, either repair it quickly or
abandon it,' Marco replied, 'for we must journey on tomorrow.'
'Tomorrow!' The Doctor echoed the word.
'We cannot stay here,' Marco said,
shaking his head. 'Those who travel to Cathay call this place the
roof of the world, to be traversed as quickly as possible.' Barbara,
Ian and Susan glanced at one another. 'So whilst we strike camp, I
will lend you two of my bearers to help you to repair it or take your
personal possessions from it and abandon the caravan where it is.'
For the life of him, the Doctor couldn't think of a suitable reply.
Ian stood outside the tent and looked
at the moonlit sky. The stars appeared to be so close he felt he
could reach up and touch them. For a few minutes the silence and
stillness were absolute but then he became aware of the sound. It was
a thump, thump, thuummp, thump, thump, thuummp beat which at first he
couldn't identify. Then the truth dawned on him. He was listening to
his own heart, so he decided it was very cold indeed, and went back
inside the tent where Marco and Tegana were sitting beside the fire.
The Doctor, wrapped warmly in his furs was fast asleep. Marco looked
at Ian who scooped some tea into a goblet from the pot suspended
above the fire.
'Did you touch a star?' Marco asked
with a smile.
'Almost, but my heart said no,' Ian
replied. Marco chuckled as Ian sat down beside them. Tegana's face
remained impassive.
Ping-Cho and Susan lay cocooned in
their fur beds.
'Are you asleep, Susan?' Ping-Cho
whispered.
'Yes,' Susan replied, and they both
giggled.
'Where are you from?' Ping-Cho asked.
'That's not an easy question to
answer.'
'You do not know where your home is?'
Ping-Cho was astonished.
'My grandfather and I have been
travelling for a long time,' Susan explained, 'and we have many homes
in many places. What about you?'
'I come from Samarkand where my father
is a government official.'
'But Marco said he was going to
Shang-Tu. Are you on holiday, then?'
'No,' Ping-Cho replied, 'Kublai Khan's
summer palace is there and that's where I shall be married.'
'Married!' Susan's whisper was shocked.
'How old are you?'
'I am in my fifteenth year.'
'So am I. You're much too young to
marry.'
'Is it different in your land?'
Ping-Cho asked and explained that in Samarkand it was the custom.
Susan wanted to know if Ping-Cho's future husband was handsome.
'I do not know,' she replied. 'I have
never met him.' In the warmth of her bed, Susan thought about it.
'Why are you marrying him?' she finally
asked.
'It has been arranged by my family,'
Ping-Cho replied.
'What do you know about him?'
'He's a very important man.'
'Lots of influence, then.'
'Yes.'
'Young, hopefully good-looking and
influential. You could do worse, I suppose.'
'Oh, he's not young, Susan. He's
seventy-five years old.'
'He's what?' Susan exploded.
'Ssssshhhh,' Ping-Cho whispered,
'you'll wake everybody up.'
'You're the one who needs waking up,'
Susan whispered back.
At dawn whilst the Doctor and Ian were
still asleep, Marco and Tegana went up onto the plateau to look at
the TARDIS. Marco walked around it several times. Tegana stood back
watching suspiciously.
'You should have let me kill them,' he
said as Marco touched the door, 'they are evil spirits, sorcerers,
magicians.' Marco turned to him.
'Magicians, yes, if the four of them
can travel in so small a caravan without wheels and no oxen to draw
it,' he agreed, 'but neither evil spirits nor sorcerers. I believe
them to be travellers though I admit I know not from where they come.
They use different words, their mode of dress is unusual and, in my
travels, I have seen many things which surpass my comprehension but
this' - he pointed to the TARDIS - 'is the strangest of all.'
'Let him explain it,' Tegana replied as
Ian came striding towards them.
'Good morning,' he said cheerily, 'I
thought I might find you here.'
'This is your caravan?' Marco asked.
'Actually, it's the Doctor's,' Ian
answered.
'But it has no wheels,' Marco observed.
'How does it move?'
'It flies,' Ian said casually, 'through
the air.' Marco looked at him intently.
'Are you of the Buddhist faith?'
Ian shook his head. 'Why?'
'At the Khan's court in Peking I have
seen Buddhist monks make goblets of wine fly unaided through the air
to offer themselves to Kublai's lips,' Marco replied, adding that
although he had seen it he did not understand how they did it. 'And
there is room enough inside for all of you?' he continued.
'Loads,' Ian said. Marco went back to
the door.
'You enter here?' he asked.
'But it's locked and the Doctor has the
key,' Ian replied.
'And it is damaged,' Marco said. Ian
nodded. 'Then we shall make a sledge and take it with us. But we must
make haste,' he added, 'I want us off the Plain of Pamir by
nightfall.' Marco strode away back towards the camp where, under the
Doctor's watchful eye, Ping-Cho was preparing a soup while Susan set
out plates, bowls, spoons and chopsticks on the tables around the
fire. Barbara came out of her compartment.
'That smells good, Ping-Cho,' she said,
'what is it?'
'Bean sprout and chicken broth, Miss
Barbara,' Ping-Cho replied.
'With all sorts of other goodies thrown
in,' Susan added.
'It's making my mouth water in
anticipation,' the Doctor said. Ping-Cho glanced at him with a smile
and inclined her head.
'My lord is kind,' she remarked.
'But it surprises me to find the
daughter of a high government official acting as the cook to Marco
Polo's retinue,' the Doctor added.
'I wish to serve, my lord,' Ping-Cho
replied, then admitted that among the Mongols there was a man who
called himself a cook but after the first day of their journey no one
else would accord him such an honour.
'His name wouldn't be Tegana, by any
chance?' the Doctor teased, but Ping-Cho took him seriously.
'Oh, no, my lord,' she said, 'the War
Lord Tegana is a special emissary from the camp of a great Tartar
ruler named Noghai who has been at war with Kublai Khan.'
'Mongol fighting Mongol,' Barbara
observed.
'The war is ended, Miss Barbara,'
Ping-Cho explained. 'Noghai has sued for peace and Tegana travels to
Kublai's court to discuss the terms of the armistice.'
'For an emissary of peace, he has
blood-thirsty habits,' the Doctor remarked dryly.
The inner tent flap opened as Marco,
Ian and Tegana came in. Marco came straight to the point.
'I find your caravan most unusual,
Doctor,' he said.
'It is different,' the Doctor conceded.
'Marco has given orders for a sledge to
be made to bring the TARDIS here,' Ian said. The Doctor smiled at
Marco.
'How kind of you, sir. I won't delay
your journey more than a few days to effect the repairs.'
Marco shook his head. 'I have told you
that we cannot stay here, Doctor,' he said, 'but we shall spend a few
days at Lop.'
'Where's that?' Barbara asked.
'It's a town on the edge of the Gobi
desert, Miss Wright.'
'Barbara,' she corrected him. He
smiled.
'Beyond Kashgar and Yarkand, Barbara.'
'You'll take us there, my caravan as
well?' the Doctor asked, and Marco told him that he had once
transported an entire army with all its equipment from Cathay to
India.
'All without loss,' he emphasised. The
Doctor smiled.
'I can work on my caravan as we
proceed,' he said.
'No.' Marco's reply was immediate and
determined.
'Why not?' the Doctor asked, taken
aback. Marco took him by the arm and drew him to one
side out of earshot.
'The Mongols, and the Tartar War Lord
Tegana still half-believe you are evil spirits,' he explained, 'but
they also think that outside your caravan you are harmless. However,
should one of you enter it - ' He raised an eyebrow and left the
sentence unfinished. The Doctor rubbed his chin reflectively.
Yes, I see the problem,' he admitted
and made up his mind. 'You saved our lives, Polo. The least we can do
is respect your wishes. On my oath, no one will enter my caravan
until we reach Lop.'
'Good,' Marco replied and, turning to
the others, said it was time to eat as there was a lot to be done.
The sledge, made from the sides of a
baggage wagon strapped together with tent stays, was quickly
finished. It was pulled up to the TARDIS where, under the combined
direction of Ian and Marco, the snow in front of the ship was dug
away until the top of the sledge was on the same level as the base of
the TARDIS.
'We should be able to push it onto the
sledge, now,' Ian said, but Marco had been right when he spoke to the
Doctor about the Mongols. They wouldn't touch it so Ian went back to
the camp to fetch more dismantled tent stays which he and Marco
secured around the TARDIS. Marco put a dusting of snow on top of the
sledge, observing that the Doctor's caravan would now slide more
easily onto it. Then he ordered the Mongols to take the ends of the
hauls and heave the TARDIS into place. Once that was done, Ian and
Marco strapped it to the sledge and the Mongols pulled it to the edge
of the slope where Marco gave the command to turn the sledge around
so that the hauls were now behind it. Marco told
the Mongols to take the strain and they dug their boots into the
snow.
'Ready, Ian?' he asked with a grin.
'When you are, Marco,' Ian replied, and
the two of them put their backs against the TARDIS and edged it over
the incline where it became what it was, a charged sledge, and with
whoopings and yellings they all went slithering and sliding down to
the camp where a beady-eyed Doctor awaited them.
'Is this to be a regular occurrence,
Polo?' he asked frostily.
'No, Doctor, I give you my word,' Marco
replied, 'the worst is over.' Ian burst out laughing.
Rapidly the camp was struck, the tents
and furnishings loaded onto four baggage wagons with the sledge
firmly attached to the last one. The Doctor, Barbara, Susan and
Ping-Cho rode in the first wagon, with Marco, Ian and Tegana in the
second. The Mongols led the oxen and walked alongside the wagons as
the caravan made its slow progress across the plain. Just before dusk
Marco called a halt and the camp was pitched although there were
fewer tents for the Mongols because of the stays being used to secure
the TARDIS. Ping-Cho prepared another soup, hotter this time as they
were at a lower altitude and the air less rarefied. As soon as they
had finished supper, everyone, with the exception of Marco, went to
bed, exhausted by the day's efforts. Marco sat, staring at the
flames. His plan had worked; the Doctor had agreed to accompany him
to Lop but, glancing over at the sleeping figure, he wondered what
the Doctor's reaction would be when he told him what he proposed to
do then.
At first, progress was slow with no
more than three leagues a day covered as the caravan came down from
the Plain of Pamir, but once they reached the Kashgar valley they
more than doubled the daily distance travelled. Still it wasn't
enough for the Doctor who was impatiently itching to repair the
TARDIS and be off. With Marco's permission, Susan and Ping-Cho would
dash off exploring the verdant countryside and woods that surrounded
them, while Marco told Ian tales of his adventures in the service of
Kublai Khan. Tegana remained aloof, only exchanging a word or two
with Marco from time to time. Eventually, they reached Yarkand, a
small but bustling town where the Old Silk Road began and along which
the commerce and culture of a thousand years to and from Cathay had
travelled. The oxen were exchanged for horses and the TARDIS, still
on its sledge, was loaded onto a wagon and secured while the Doctor
grumbled that he should be allowed to repair it there. But Marco was
adamant that the caravan should continue its journey and, besides,
the Doctor had given his word.
The journey to Lop, through the
undulating farmland, was pleasant. Marco, Ian, Barbara and Tegana
were on horseback which meant that the two wagons for the travellers had, in the first, the
Doctor muttering irascibly to himself and, in the second, Susan with
Ping-Cho giggling, gossiping and playing games. The tent, now without
the furs to line it, was pitched in the evenings and Ping-Cho, with
both Barbara and Susan helping, would prepare them a 'proper' meal as
the Doctor described it. But, as they approached Lop, the landscape
changed: the earth became dry and dusty, the outcrops of green fewer
and farther between for Lop was built on the edge of the vast Gobi
desert and, whereas Yarkand had been a town, Lop was little more than
an oasis, a natural spring, surrounded by tents and wooden shacks.
But the main building, the way-station or hotel, was well-appointed.
The manager, Yeng, a dignified Chinese who never took his hands out
of his jacket sleeves, greeted Marco courteously and gave orders for
the horses to be stabled. The baggage train was put into a compound,
but the Doctor insisted that the wagon with the TARDIS be placed in
the main courtyard where he could keep an eye on it. Smiling, Marco
agreed with him.
'I shall start work at once,' the
Doctor said. Marco raised a hand and advised the Doctor to relax for
a day or two. Their journey had been long and arduous but now in the
comfort of the way-station they could refresh their spirits. Ian
agreed, so reluctantly the Doctor gave in. They were given rooms on
the first floor overlooking the courtyard and Susan opted to share
one with Ping-Cho. As he reclined in his bathtub, the Doctor
grudgingly conceded to himself that Marco had been right to make him
rest. All their travel-stained clothes were whisked away to be
cleaned and when they met in their flowing, delicately embroidered
silken robes for a sumptuous dinner the Doctor wore his mandarin hat
at a jaunty angle.