SAVAGE GALAHAD

Episode #184 · Written by Bryce Walton · Narrated by Scott Miller

On Venus, nothing survives by accident. In the choking mist and boiling swamp, life belongs to the strongest instinct and the fastest strike. At the center of this hostile world coils a vast, ancient ruler whose supersonic brain senses every movement for miles. He has lived through ages by never doubting himself.

Then an alien presence brushes his mind. An Earth woman wanders the swamp, unaware of the layered dangers closing around her. To him she is unlike anything his world has shaped—soft, uncertain, astonishingly exposed. He studies her thoughts and finds a word he has never needed before. Love. He cannot untangle its meanings, but he understands one thing clearly: he wants her to live.

Each predator that descends toward her meets his jaws first. Each rescue brings him closer to a confrontation he has always avoided. Protecting her means abandoning the caution that has preserved him for countless cycles. When the greatest terror in the swamp rises to claim her, he must choose whether to retreat into safety—or face a battle that could end his long dominion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bryce Walton published extensively in the American science fiction magazine market from the late 1940s through the 1960s. His stories appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, Fantastic Universe, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Walton also wrote novels and television scripts, and he developed a reputation for placing characters inside extreme psychological and environmental conditions. In “Savage Galahad,” that focus is unmistakable: the drama unfolds inside the mind of an alien predator forced to act on a feeling it does not fully understand.

LISTEN TO THE STORY

Listen to Savage Galahad by Bryce Walton — a vintage science fiction short story set in a lethal Venusian swamp where a ruler risks everything to save a lost Earth explorer.

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