diff --git a/src/virtualenv/discovery/py_info.py b/src/virtualenv/discovery/py_info.py
index 7c680eeaa..d9f9fce2d 100644
--- a/src/virtualenv/discovery/py_info.py
+++ b/src/virtualenv/discovery/py_info.py
@@ -138,6 +138,20 @@ def _fast_get_system_executable(self):
                 base_executable = getattr(sys, "_base_executable", None)  # some platforms may set this to help us
                 if base_executable is not None:  # use the saved system executable if present
                     if sys.executable != base_executable:  # we know we're in a virtual environment, cannot be us
+                        # Do light validation for non-Windows virtual environments
+                        # Some installs/distributions do not provide a version-less "python" binary (PEP 394).
+                        # Try to fallback to an alternative based on version number
+                        # This should still be relatively fast since it's just a couple of `stat` calls
+                        if self.os != "nt" and (self.version_info.major, self.version_info.minor) >= (3, 11):
+                            if not os.path.exists(base_executable):
+                                major, minor = self.version_info.major, self.version_info.minor
+                                base_dir = os.path.dirname(base_executable)
+                                for candidate in [
+                                    os.path.join(base_dir, f"python{v}") for v in (major, f"{major}.{minor}")
+                                ]:
+                                    if os.path.exists(candidate):
+                                        base_executable = candidate
+                                        break
                         return base_executable
             return None  # in this case we just can't tell easily without poking around FS and calling them, bail
         # if we're not in a virtual environment, this is already a system python, so return the original executable