The captain of the Giodano Bruno, the Jesuits' second expedition to the planet Rakhat, Frans is a heavy-drinking Dutch Reformed agnostic from Johannesburg, South Africa. He studies philosophy at Blomfontein, but this offers no jobs, so he signs on with the Camorra (Neapolitan Mafia) to pilot spaceships, a lucrative business. He considers the Catholic Church a fraud and has no firm thoughts on God. He suggests that Abraham might have simply invented God to impose meaning on chaos, and later people find comfort in this. The human condition is one of ignorance and anxiety, which most cure by food and sex. Frans' use of Schrödinger's analogy of cats in a box to God escapes simple Nico. Frans asks Nico to pray for a miracle that they may return from this mission. He confides that he is obese because eating the the Afrikaner national sport and spaceflight has upset his DNA. He has fought it and is frightened that it will shorten his life. He hopes that someone will find a cure while he is traveling near the speed of light and not aging.
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