The Cradle of the Snake (audio story)

 was the one hundred and thirty-eighth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Marc Platt and featured Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, Sarah Sutton as Nyssa, Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka and Mark Strickson as Turlough.

It was the third and final Big Finish audio story in the 2010 Fifth Doctor season. It continued a series of stories starring Davison, Sutton, Fielding and Strickson, who were reunited as a TARDIS team for their first new Doctor Who stories since 1983. It was further notable for including the return of the Mara, a recurring enemy of the Fifth Doctor's era on television.

Publisher's summary
"The Mara is in all of us, deep in our minds. In our darkest thoughts, that's where it started. Some people call it a demon, but that's too simple. It's about temptation."

Tegan's nightmares have returned. Seeking to banish the snake-like Mara from his companion's psyche, the Doctor sets course for Manussa, the creature's point of origin. But the TARDIS arrives instead in the heyday of the Manussan Empire, where infotainment impresario Rick ausGarten is preparing to turn dreams into reality.

The sun is setting on the Manussan Empire... and it's all the Doctor's fault.

Part one
Nyssa manages to get Tegan to let her into their bedroom to talk about the Mara before realising that she is currently under the Mara's control. Tegan collapses after the Doctor and Turlough join them and the Doctor uses a Little Mind's Eye to enter her mind to drive the Mara out, but it refuses to leave without a new host and shows him the mark of the snake. Despite the Doctor's orders not to disturb him, Nyssa is distressed by his restlessness and wakes him up. The Little Mind's Eye is broken and Tegan's mark has disappeared.

Unsure of whether he has managed to drive out the Mara, the Doctor flies the TARDIS to Manussa to get Dojjen's help but lands several centuries early, long before the Manussan Empire's subjugation by the Mara and the decline of its advanced civilisation. The Doctor takes Tegan to the Faculty of Advancement to see Dr Honri Kerrem, leaving Turlough and Nyssa to wander around, and a scan finds only a small amount of tissue damage in her hippocampus.

At Sundown Studios, Rick ausGarten and his assistant, Baalaka, give a demonstration of a machine that makes dreams a reality to Yoanna Rayluss whilst Snakeherd Dadda Desaka protests outside. The machine does not create what she is imagining but a giant rose in which she can see a fair-haired man writhing and trying to get free, so she deems it dangerous and intends to recommend in her report that his project cease. At the Faculty, the Doctor talks to Dr Kerrem in private and shows him the mark of the Mara on his arm.

Part two
The Doctor gets Dr Kerrem to write him a list of Manussa's intellectuals and give him money before heading to Sundown Studios to meet ausGarten, sending Tegan back to Turlough and Nyssa. She finds them with a distressed Yoanna and is briefly harrassed by a snake which Dadda Desaka comes for, making a prophecy about a dark cloud swallowing Manussa which reminds Tegan of a dream of the Doctor taking the Mara upon himself. Whilst Turlough finds the Doctor nearby and agrees to go alone with him to Scrampus Park, Turlough, Nyssa and Yoanna are joined by more Snakeherds who send out their snakes to find the Mara.

Dadda Desaka identifies the Doctor as the host of the Mara and the Doctor leaves with Turlough for Sundown Studios upon seeing the snakes. They find deformed animals in hutches and the Doctor locks Turlough in an empty one before calling Dr Kerrem to ensure that Manussa's intellectuals are all paid to attend a dinner. He offers to fund ausGarten's project, of which he learns that the animals are byproducts, and to have celebrity guests endorse it. As Tegan, Nyssa, Yoanna and Dadda arrive outside of the studios, the Doctor frees the snakes created by the machine and declares that he is the Mara, the rightful heir to the world of chaos.

Part three
Turlough is released by Baalaka and runs into Tegan, Nyssa, Yoanna and Dadda before both he and the Doctor are arrested and taken away for public disturbances at the park. Tegan and Nyssa are now certain that the Doctor has been possessed by the Mara and theorise that the Mara intends to become real several centuries early using the now-confiscated technology built by ausGarten, who is also under the Mara's control. In their cell, the Doctor attacks Turlough with a snake and has Dr Kerrem, called in by Yoanna to run tests, free him, but Turlough manages to steal his TARDIS key.

Tegan and Nyssa wait at the TARDIS for the Doctor and Turlough and are joined by Dadda, who is taken over when the Doctor arrives. Tegan and Nyssa get into the TARDIS with Turlough and look for information on the Mara in the TARDIS library, but they find that the relevant pages in a book of demonology have been removed by the Mara to help it achieve its goals early. The Doctor enters the TARDIS, having created a key using the dream-maker, and takes over Nyssa's mind before tying Tegan and Turlough up and flying the ship to the studio. On live television, the Doctor and ausGarten use the machine to rebirth the Mara as a giant snake.

Part four
Using Dr Kerrem and Dadda's influence with the public, the Doctor paints a positive image of the Mara and announces that it will accept sacrifices at midnight. Tegan and Turlough persuade Baalaka to let them go and split up; Turlough calls Yoanna for help and learns that she is already outside of the studio whilst Tegan tries to get through to Nyssa and goes with her into the disabled TARDIS to find a dress for her to wear. Turlough joins Tegan and they pretend to agree to join Nyssa, who believes that the Doctor is unworthy of his current role as leader of the Council of the Snake, but secretly plan to remove the crystal used by the dream-maker.

The Mara feeds on the fear of the crowds gathered outside of the studio and Tegan and Turlough trap the Doctor using cameras and screens, but the mark of the Mara remains on him. Baalaka stares into the crystal and is transported with Tegan and Turlough to a place similar to the Place of Dreaming where the Doctor, Nyssa and Dadda are. The Doctor banishes the Mara within him to the Dark Places Inside and regains control, getting the crystal into the TARDIS and inverting its power. Tegan decides that she will be the one who defeats the Mara by touching it with the crystal, but Baalaka, who now knows that he is the light casting the shadow of the Mara, takes it upon himself.

The Mara and Baalaka disappear. Dadda is commissioned to write a book about recent events and ausGarten offers the Doctor the opportunity to star in a series of his own, but he declines and tells his companions that he does not believe that the Mara is or will ever truly be gone. He brushes Yoanna off when she asks about whether he has any posts available on the TARDIS and leaves with Tegan, Turlough and Nyssa as she answers her phone, having established a Mara helpline.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Peter Davison
 * Tegan Jovanka - Janet Fielding
 * Nyssa - Sarah Sutton
 * Turlough - Mark Strickson
 * Rick ausGarten - Dan Stevens
 * Dr Honri Kerrem - Hugh Fraser
 * Yoanna Rayluss - Madeleine Potter
 * Dadda Desaka - Vernon Dobtcheff
 * Baalaka - Toby Sawyer

History

 * Tegan's father owned a sheep farm with two thousand head of merino. He flew a Cessna Skyhawk.
 * The Manussan Empire is at its height in 2215; according to the TARDIS data banks, the rise of the Sumaran regime will occur in the Manussan year 2326, over a hundred years later.

Planets

 * Nyssa says the goodness on Traken is more robust and less forced than on some other worlds.

Continuity

 * The Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan encountered the Mara on two previous occasions. (TV: Kinda, Snakedance)
 * The Doctor mentions that he plans to catch up with Dojjen at a later date. (TV: Snakedance)
 * The Doctor reminds Turlough of his past coercion under the Black Guardian. (TV: Mawdryn Undead, Enlightenment et al.)
 * Tegan complains that the Doctor is always winding her up but then bringing her to the wrong place, when they land on Manussa in the wrong time period. He was often, often unsuccessfully, trying to get her back to Heathrow airport in their earlier travels.(TV: Logopolis, The Visitation et al.)
 * Turlough reminds the Doctor of their many adventures including Helheim and the Cractids as well as their oter adventures. (AUDIO: Cobwebs et al.)
 * The Mara-possessed Doctor curses bureaucracy. The Doctor often made jokes about bureaucracy. (TV: Castrovalva et al.)
 * Nyssa reminds Tegan, while under the Mara's influence, that she was born into royalty. She is a princess. (TV: The Keeper of Traken)
 * Tegan recognises the place of dreams from when they were on the Kinda world. (TV: Kinda)