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anything.’
    ‘Isn’t that proof enough?’ Otto boomed. ‘Whoever owns that planet wants to keep unwanted visitors out! They’ve used a cosmic-catapult and a StellarTrip! A dark-matter trapdoor must be next!’
    Peri stared into the darkness ahead of him. They hadn’t spotted either of the other space-hazards until it was too late. ‘I guess it makes sense . . . What do dark-matter trapdoors do, Otto?’
    ‘Nobody knows,’ Otto said, ‘because nobody has lived to tell.’
    Peri clenched his fist in frustration. They were so close to completing their mission. All they needed to do was slip past the trap, then they could find and arrest Daxx and recover the Heart of Mars. He wished he could be in two places at once so he could trigger the trap without endangering the Phoenix .
    The artery in his neck started throbbing, but it wasn’t his heart racing or his blood pressure increasing. It felt urgent, like a flashing button on the control panel but inside him. His bionic half was sending him a message.
    Peri raised his fingers to his neck. He could feel blood beating under his fingertips, and behind the artery he could feel something else. A small button.
    He pushed it. Click!
    Body Duplication activated , announced a voice in his head. Imagine secondary location.
    Peri pictured himself on a mini-pod racing towards the blue planet. A blinding flash of light burst through his mind like a solar-flare. Suddenly, he was sliding down a long silver tube into a mini-pod, but part of him was still on the Bridge. His mind strained with astonishment. I’m in two places at once!
    He landed in a mini-pod with a hurrrupt . An astro-harness snaked around his body. He took a deep breath while he tried to understand what was happening. He could feel and touch the mini-pod as if his body was normal, but he was also aware of the part of him he had left behind on the Bridge. It felt like he’d left behind an energy shell that was able to see and hear what was happening, but was fixed to the spot, as still as a statue. The shell-Peri on the Bridge could not move or even speak.
     

     
    Peri’s pod-self fired up the mini-pod’s engines and blasted towards the dark-matter trapdoor.
    He became aware that, back on the Bridge, Selene was yelling at his energy shell. ‘You reckless idiot! I don’t know how you did it, but I know you’ve split yourself in half. Even split in half, you still have a heat signature.’
    Peri’s pod-self hit the control panel to activate the com-unit. ‘This is going to work. Just keep watching the Exo-Scanner and record how big the trap is.’
    As the mini-pod glided through the blackness, Peri could feel sweat trickling down his neck. His Expedition Wear suddenly felt stifling. At any moment the trap was going to spring into action. He placed his thumbs over the emergency-reverse thrusters so he’d be ready to escape.
    Caaarraaaroorraar! The space around him was ripped apart by a dark red light. Instantly, the mini-pod lurched forward. Being sucked into the dark-matter trapdoor was like being pulled into the jaws of the largest cosmic killer whale in the universe.
    Peri slammed on the emergency-reverse thrusters, but nothing could escape the overwhelming force of the trapdoor. The straps of astro-harness cut into his chest – the dark matter was trying to rip him right out of the mini-pod!
    He punched the controls again, trying to get the pod away from the trapdoor, but nothing worked. Instead he was spinning into the trapdoor’s jaws. There’s no way I can fly the mini-pod out of here , he realised. I’ve got to use my bionic connection to escape.
    As he tried to lift his hand to his neck, Peri realised that the gravitational pull of the dark matter made his hand weigh more than his entire body – and it was getting heavier every second. It felt like the trapdoor was trying to rip his hand from his wrist.
    Activate Fight-or-Flight , he shouted in his mind.
    Energy buzzed through Peri’s body as